Inverness sights, Cheticamp sounds get boost

SYDNEY — Main Street Inverness will get facade improvements and a French-language community radio station will expand from Cheticamp into Sydney, thanks to provincial government funding announced Thursday.

The province is putting $18,250 into a Municipality of Inverness County strategy to improve signage and add banners and a kiosk in the community of Inverness.

It is also providing $16,250 for a new transmission antenna in Sydney and other equipment upgrades for Co-operative Radio Cheticamp’s CKJM station.

The antenna will be placed on Etoile de l’Acadie school in Sydney to boost the Cheticamp station’s Francophone listeners and open a new market for advertising sales.

“It’s not a tower,” said station manager Angus LeFort. “We’re installing an antenna on the French school on Prince Street.”

In Cheticamp, the community station broadcasts at 106.1 FM, with a format that offers mainly Acadian music and French-language news, but also offers a wide variety of other music and programming. In addition to current affairs discussed on-air, some of the programming includes jazz and blues music, East Coast music and some Gaelic shows.

“It’s community radio, so basically we try to please all tastes,” LeFort said.

The news comes out of a sister station in New Brunswick that includes Canadian Press stories. CKJM does not have its own reporters, said LeFort.

The station, which employs three people full time and one part time, has a repeater in Pomquet that broadcasts at 92.5 FM.

In Sydney, the Internet signal will go through a one-kilowatt transmitter and broadcast at 97.5 FM to the greater Sydney area, which LeFort said will include New Waterford, Glace Bay and Louisbourg to the east, and possibly as far west as Kellys Mountain, depending on the geography.

“It sounds more simple than it really is, but we’ve been planning this for a long time,” he said.

The provincial funding will also allow the 19-year-old station to replace its five-kilowatt transmitter, a console and other older equipment, said LeFort.

Michel Samson, minister of Economic and Rural Development and Tourism, said in a press release the projects will help maintain and grow businesses.

“Both projects are great initiatives designed to strengthen communities in Cape Breton, and help generate benefits to the local economies,” he said.